Pontypandy in Space
by Bobby South
Summary: Fed up of SuperTed's success, Texas Pete is determined to see the teddy bear fail for once. After kidnapping Pontypandy residents and sending them to crash into SuperTed's space station, Tex gives him a choice: to either save his Pontypandy friends in space or save the ship from falling on the Planet Earth. (The final chapter of my Fireman Sam/SuperTed trilogy).


It was a warm summer's day. Norman Price and his friends Sarah and James had just finished picking potatoes from Bella Lasagne's potato field. Now they were on their way back to her café with their potato-filled buckets with Trevor the bus. They were more than enough potatoes for her to make a month's worth of chips. The heat made them sweat and exhausted, but it made them feel very proud of their hard work today. Except Norman who wished he played his video games all day, but his mum made him go to help the twins because it would help him get out of his room more and he always caused more trouble in the shop than help.

Then Trevor's bus suddenly stopped. He thought that was very strange as he didn't hear anything from the engine or his anything wrong with his tyres. "Okay, we have a problem," he told the kids. "Everyone, off now."

The kids went off. Then Trevor got off. He checked the engine and tyres; both seemed to be fine. Then he noticed on the road there was brake fluid. Puzzled by this, he looked under his bus and saw there was a major leek coming from brake fluid pipe. As Trevor tried to work out what caused it to burst, he found a lasso around his chest and was dragged away from his bus.

* * *

The fire alarm went off.

"Now, who needs the Fire Service?" Station Officer Steele tore the scroll off and read it. "Good grief! Norman Price, Sarah and James are trapped in a house near Pandy Lane Farm and are suffering from toxic fumes. On the double, men! And Fire-fighter Morris!"

Steele joined Firemen Sam and Elvis Criddlington entering Jupiter the fire engine as the big red doors opened.

"All present and correct, sir," Sam reported.

"Right, let's go!" Steele ordered.

Sam turned the sirens on and off Jupiter went. Fire-fighter Penny Morris followed in Venus.

* * *

It didn't take them very long to reach the house that was supposed to be full of toxic fume but didn't appear to be. It looked as clean as its beautiful white bricks, red roof tiles, beautifully stained windows and dark green door. Even the overgrown, weedy garden looked peaceful and safe.

Sam, Elvis and Penny were all in their yellow gas tight suits and breathing apparatus so they could do their job in the safest way possible.

"Could it be a trick?" Elvis asked.

"Maybe," Sam said. "But it's our duty to check that there are no dangers. Isn't that right, sir?"

"Er, yes, we should," agreed Steele. "Carry on, Fireman Sam." He stayed to watch Sam knock the door down and they all went in. Then he heard some soft footprints. He was about to tell whoever it was to stay well clear, but his mouth was greeted by a large cloth. He fell asleep to one free left hand. The right hand was holding a large bottle of chloroform.

* * *

Fireman Sam searched the whole house from top to bottom. He had seen no toxic fumes or any other dangerous gas at all. All the rooms were tidy and clean.

As he started to head down the stairs, Sam started to wonder if this was one of Norman Price's tricks. He called for Elvis and Penny, but he got no reply. Then something pinned him to the ground and he saw a large grey bag taking over him completely. Then he started to get dragged about. He tried to break free but he couldn't. If this _was_ Norman's doing, Sam would have to punish him very seriously without even asking his mum's permission.

When the bag was open, Sam was dragged out and immediately cuffed in handcuffs. "Norman Price, this has gone too far! You are in very big – " Then he stopped when he saw it was not Norman Price at all, but a terrifying cowboy.

"Just shut up!" warned the evil Texas Pete. He turned Sam around and ripped the back of the gas-tight suit off. He opened his tank up and poured a lot of chloroform into the tank.

Tex turned Sam around and was pleased that the poor fireman was unconscious. After stripping him off Sam's suit completely, he then dragged him to a small white rocket. It was no bigger than Trevor's bus but it was plenty to fit a lot of people in: Tex, Sam, the fire-fighters, Trevor, Sarah, James and Norman. He had been the one behind everything going wrong today: firing a bullet at the brake fluid pipe without alerting Trevor and the passengers, setting a prank call at the loneliest house in the whole of Pontypandy to lure the fire service out and using chloroform to kidnap everyone.

The evil cowboy got into the pilot seat and pressed the controls. He cheered as the rocket took off. "Everything to go according to plan. Soon we'll be able to give SuperTed and his pimple-headed friend the surprise of their lives. And I'll finally have my revenge after all these years."

* * *

About an hour later, the rocket was hovering above the Earth.

Tex turned to check his prisoners were still unconscious. After he doubled checked they were, he got into his spacesuit and immediately flew out of the rocket.

Tex kept laughing and laughing as he floated toward his own spaceship. The hatch opened and he landed inside.

As he took his helmet off, his henchmen, Bulk and Skeleton, closed the hatch.

"The plan's working, boys," Tex cheered, as he danced around in a loop of joy.

"Yeah, great!" Bulk cried. "Uh, what plan, Tex?"

"Now that we have captured some prisoners, we can send that rocket to SuperTed's space station where it will crash and set fire to their space station. Then SuperTed and Spottyman will have to save the helpless passengers in space or save the whole planet from their floating station. They can't do both so either one way or another, they will finally fail."

"Oh, Tex, you're so evil." Skeleton peeked through the windscreen. "Oh, look. They're heading for the station already."

Tex and Bulk looked to see that Skeleton was right. They all danced with pride.

* * *

Spottyman was panting as he was struggling to do star jumps in his space station's gym.

"Come on, Spotty," his best friend SuperTed encouraged. "You need to be kept fit." He started to do another fifty push-ups.

Spotty had done all he could. "I can't keep up, SuperTed. Spotty folk doesn't need to do much exercise as the Earthlings. And our spotty vegetables are much healthier."

When SuperTed had finished doing his push-ups, he looked at his best friend who seemed fed up. He went to sit next to him. "What's the matter, Spotty?"

The spotted alien sighed. "Well, if you really must know, I feel like I've been feeling useless recently. Sometimes I feel bad when I can't catch up to you when you go after Texas Pete. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve you be your friend, let alone your partner. Sometimes I don't know if I have a purpose in life, even on the Planet Spot."

Though shocked to hear that, SuperTed just smiled sympathetically. He knew Spotty was going through what everyone goes through at sometime in their lives: feeling down. He sometimes felt the same himself. As he told Spotty that and tried to give him advice to make him feel good again, a bright white light took over the room.

"Oh, isn't that lovely?" Spotty looked at it with awe.

But SuperTed was more worried. It kept getting closer and closer towards them. "I think it's a meteoroid, Spotty! Take cover!"

But it was too late. The room got hit and the two friends flew to the wall. As they got up, they saw the windows cracking into pieces. So were the walls and the ceiling.

"By the bald birds of Spot!" Spotty cried. "What's happening?" He rolled out of the way before a ceiling piece trapped him.

SuperTed said his magic word, ripped off his brown fur revealing his scarlet suit. "Come on, Spotty. We need to escape in your rocket."

He and Spotty ran to the spotty rocket and immediately left the station. Once clear of the station, they turned the ship a hundred and eighty degrees around and saw that their space station was in a complete mess; on fire on the inside, falling to pieces on the outside and what was worse was the whole thing was falling down… to Planet Earth!

"What do we do, SuperTed?" Spotty asked.

"I have no idea," the teddy bear confessed. "Let me think." Then he saw another floating thing. It was small and heading away from the planet and it had civilians in it as well!

"What? Untrained civilians in space?" Spotty cried. "What were those Earthlings thinking?"

"I think it's the actions of three Earthlings, Spotty," SuperTed said.

"Texas Pete, Bulk and Skeleton?"

"Who else?" After surveying both the disasters, he thought of a solution. He couldn't promise it would work, but he couldn't see any other option. "I'm going back to the station. You catch the spaceship, rescue the passengers and don't forget to give them the spacesuits."

Spotty was shocked to hear SuperTed going back to the station.

"I have to, Spotty. Before it crashes onto the Earth." And with that, the superhero flew back, while his alien friend flew towards the passengers.

* * *

The passengers on the ship were still unconscious, except James who began to wake up. He confusingly wondered where he was. He thought he was in a simulator ride at a theme park. Then he realised that there were no seats let alone seat beats. If it was a ride, where was the safety in this? Then he noticed that hid hands were cuffed up. He hopped to the nearest window and gasped in shock. He found it very hard to believe that he was in space. He thought he was dreaming.

"Cor, mega brill!"

James turned around to see Norman looking out at a different window.

"We're in space!"

"Careful, Norman," James told him. "I don't think we were brought up the way up here just to get a view of the planet."

"Uncle Sam, please wake up."

James saw his twin sister Sarah tried to nudge their Uncle Sam to wake up, but was failing to do so.

"What are we to do now?" Sarah asked.

Then they heard the hatch open up and they were relieved to find Spottyman rushing in through a grey tunnel, carrying spacesuits.

"Quick, put these on," the spotted alien told them. He quickly tended to the grownups, putting the spacesuits on them. He didn't bother trying to wake them up as he knew time was running out.

The kids wasted no time putting their spacesuits on, but they were too big.

"See the green button in middle?" Spotty asked. "Press it."

They pressed the green button in the middle of their suits and soon both the suit and the helmet fitted like a glove. Then they saw Spotty helping the grownups up and onto his spotted rocket. They went to assist him.

* * *

Skeleton had been checking the rocket with the passengers was falling. He was disappointed when he saw the spotty rocket arriving to rescue the passengers. He hesitantly reported this to Tex and Bulk.

The cowboy was angry at first when he heard it, but he quickly had an awful evil idea. He went to put his spacesuit back on.

* * *

Spotty had successfully put all the grownups onboard the spotty rocket. He was about to escort the kids onboard when they heard several gunshots. It fired on the small grey tunnel between the ships. The spotty rocket's hatch closed on its own and the ship started to float away.

Spotty and the kids heard another gunshot and watched the hatch float away from them. Spotty ran to the window and saw it was his old foe Texas Pete with smoking coming out of his guns. He gave the prisoners an evil grin before he fled back to his own ship.

* * *

Back at the space station, SuperTed was really struggling to control the situation. It was still falling to pieces and he couldn't even put the fires out. And what was worse that he couldn't get the station to fly away from the Earth. He tried to contact the peoples of Earth to warn them but all of his communications were completely down.

Then the monitor turned on.

"How's it going, SuperTed?" Tex asked.

The teddy bear glared at the screen. "I know this is all your doing, Tex. Why are you doing this?"

"Why are you wasting time asking me stupid questions? When you should be helping out your spotted headed friend and some kids."

Then SuperTed gasped in horror as the screen showed him the spotty rocket out of control and floating away from the white rocket that Tex made hit the station. As he tried to work out what to do, he knew why Tex was doing this. After so many years of successfully stopping Tex and his gang, the evil cowboy was intending to see the super hero for once fail in his life.

"It's either your best friend or the people of the Earth, SuperTed," Tex said. "You're choice. But either way you will fail one way or the other." His laughing went off as the screen went off.

SuperTed started to make his mind up.

* * *

The silver ship was still spinning out of control. Spotty had tried to maintain control of it, but it was out of his reach. He couldn't even steer the wheel.

"It's no good, kids," he told them. "I can't control it."

The kids were worried as they held on the straps on the ceiling. They didn't know how much air they had in their suit. They were all beginning to doubt that they would survive this disaster.

Then Sarah noticed that her strap above her was shaking and rattling. And her fear of it being released and her falling out the rocket came true.

"HELP!"

"SARAH!" James cried. "I'M COMING!" He was about to let go of his strap, but Spotty stopped him.

"No, I'll go and save her!" the alien told him. "You stay here!"

But as he tried to make his way out, the ship flipped backwards and prevented him from leaving. He and the boys were stuck. They couldn't even see how Sarah was far from them.

* * *

On the spotted rocket, Fireman Sam's eyes were just starting to open. When he opened them fully, he was puzzled. He was shocked to discover he was in the inside of a spotted rocket and he was in a spacesuit.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Then he saw his fellow fire-fighters getting up as well. They were just as confused as he was.

"We can't be in space, can we?" Trevor asked.

"But who would do this?" Penny asked. "Can't be Norman, can it? I mean I think this is too far for his standards.

If this was Norman Price's doing, he really went too far this time.

Then Elvis went to the edge and felt the emptiness of space. "It feels so real."

"Firemen Criddlington, come back from there immediately," Steele ordered.

"Oh, okay, sir." Elvis started to walk back, but unfortunately, he tripped up and landed on the ground. Then he felt like he was being pulled out of the rocket.

"ELVIS!"

The fire-fighters ran to see Elvis floating away from them.

"What will we do?" Penny asked.

"What can we do, Penny?" Sam asked. "We're fire-fighters, not astronauts."

"Hey, I think Elvis is coming back to us," Trevor said.

Everyone looked ahead at space. They could see Elvis floating towards them. And someone else was with him.

"SuperTed!" cried Sam.

Everyone was delighted to see Elvis coming back to them with SuperTed. He was also carrying Sarah in his left arm. He put them down.

"Are you all right?" the teddy bear asked both of them.

Elvis was relieved that he was back in the rocket but Sarah didn't stop crying because of her shocking incident of falling out of a rocket. Both SuperTed and her Uncle Sam reassured her that everything was okay.

"No, it's not," Sarah sobbed. "James, Norman and Spotty are still in that ship. I don't know where they got to now."

SuperTed ran to the spotted radar and found the floating ship. He set the controls and flew off immediately.

* * *

Spotty and the boys hadn't stopped spinning for half an hour. They were all feeling very sick. And what was worse that they had no idea where they were going. Then they felt a heavy whack and the ship stopped spinning. They turned to see the hatch opening with a brand new tunnel.

"Come on, boys," Spotty said as he led them into the spotted rocket.

James and Norman were so relived to be back with their friends again. James went to hug his sister and his Uncle Sam.

"I thought you weren't going to come, SuperTed," Spotty said, as he hugged his best friend.

"I almost didn't, Spotty," SuperTed confessed. As he set the rocket to fly back to his space station, the teddy bear told them that Texas Pete was behind all of this. His aim was to set the teddy bear to fail to do one thing or the other.

While he tried to make the toughest choice of his life, SuperTed got a call from Linda, the First Daughter of the USA. She got a call from her friend Spotty to warn her and all the peoples of the Earth about his space station falling and not knowing what impact it might cause. And helpless civilians from Pontypandy loose in a ship.

Linda knew that Texas Pete was behind all of this. When SuperTed told her that he couldn't maintain control of the station, she told him to go help Spotty and the helpless civilians. She would use her power to evacuate the civilians on Earth away from where the station might hit.

"But if we speed the rocket up, we could at least catch up to that falling station."

"What's the point?" James asked.

Sam knew what SuperTed was thinking. "When the station enters the Earth's atmosphere, it will catch fire. We could at least put the fire out to cause less damage when it hits wherever on the planet."

The teddy bear smiled. "Precisely."

"But what can we do put the fire out?" Steele asked. "I can't see any hoses, buckets or even water."

"That's where you're wrong, Station Officer Steele." Spotty opened a cupboard. Everyone was amazed to see the rocket had the full fire-fighting works: hoses, buckets, fire axes and a tub of water.

* * *

The spotted rocket caught up with the station just before it caught fire as it entered Earth's atmosphere. As Spotty held the rocket steady, the firemen were holding the hoses.

"Should we fire water now?" Elvis asked.

"We wait until we have finished entering the atmosphere," Penny told him. "SuperTed's orders."

After waiting for three more minutes, they had finally entered Earth's atmosphere. SuperTed gave the fire-fighters the order to finally fire water on the station.

After managing to put out the fire on the top of the vast station head, Spotty moved the rocket to the vast ring. But as he did, Sarah, James and Norman were getting something from the spotted radar.

"We got incoming, SuperTed," Norman reported.

SuperTed looked up and wasn't surprised to see Texas Pete's spaceship. He immediately flew out. He opened the hatch and went in.

"Stay right where you are," Bulk said. "Or else."

"Or else what, Bulk?" the plucky teddy bear said.

That got a confused Bulk thinking. When he knew he didn't have an answer, SuperTed just pushed him out of the way. The fat idiot knocked Skeleton to the wall, sending his bones to fly across the rocket.

SuperTed flew over to the controls but he couldn't find Texas Pete because he wasn't in the seat. Then darkness took over and trapped him. He was in a giant grey sack.

Tex laughed. "After all these years, I've finally outsmarted him. He's not going to fail to do just one task, but both tasks." He turned to his henchmen. "Open the hatch."

Bulk and Skeleton opened the hatch and Tex immediately threw the bag out to the vast blue ocean. Feeling proud of himself, he went back to the controls. "Let's put that spotted sausages and his poor friends out of their miseries."

He rammed the controls down. His ship was getting very close to the spotted rocket when suddenly the controls slowed down and went completely off. They heard the rocket engines powering down as well. Yet they were still standing in the air instead of falling down. Tex tried to steer the wheel but he couldn't. He had no better success with the controls. "Let's get out of here," he cried.

"Isn't it quite a long fall, Tex?" Skeleton asked.

"Not if we jump by parachutes." Tex went to cupboard and got out three parachutes. He chucked one each to Bulk and Skeleton and put his own on. He ran to open the hatch door and was shocked at what he saw outside. His rocket ship had not only landed on Earth but was standing outside the White House in Washington D.C. They were also greeted by the US Army and a tall red-hair lady in a smart grey blazer and skirt.

"The First Daughter of the United States of America!" Skeleton cried. He remembered when he and his friends tried to kidnap her in the Sahara Desert so Tex could be the President of the United States, but was immediately stopped by SuperTed and Spotty.

Tex growled as he saw SuperTed land in front of the bad guys. "You brought us down, didn't you?"

"How right you are, Tex," SuperTed said. "You are surrounded by the army and the First Daughter of the USA. Surrender yourselves now."

Tex, Bulk and Skeleton surrendered themselves. But the evil cowboy was chuckling.

"You may have stopped me, SuperTed, but because you are here, you can't help your friends now to stop your station from falling."

SuperTed got a buzz from his walkie-talkie. "Come in, Spotty."

"SuperTed, the station has crashed," Spotty reported.

"Where?"

"In some desert in the USA. Sam says it's in the Colorado Desert. No human, animal or plant is harmed whatsoever."

SuperTed sighed a sigh of relief.

Enraged to hear this, Tex screamed at the top of his lungs. He was silenced by two US marines and taken away. His two henchmen joined him.

"Well done, SuperTed," Linda said. "How clever of you do both."

"Thanks, Linda, but I couldn't have done this without Spotty. Where are you taking the villains?"

* * *

Linda and the marines took SuperTed and the villains to West Potomac Park. Soon the Spotted Rocket landed and Spottyman and his Pontypandy friends joined them.

SuperTed and Spotty exchanged hugs, best friends glad to see each other again. Then the teddy bear checked on his Pontypandy friends and they were all shaken but relived that it was over. Norman was the only one who was thrilled with the whole terrifying space experience.

"So where are we going to put the villains this time?" Penny asked.

"Right here," SuperTed explained.

Everyone was looking at where he was pointing.

"A tree?" Norman said. That was all he could see. That was all everyone could see.

"Ha! Where are you going to put them?" Steele asked. "In a tree house?"

"That doesn't sound very secure for the three worst villains on Planet Earth," Elvis said.

Linda just chuckled and nodded at the two soldiers standing by the tree. They took a piece of bark off and everyone saw a padlock with numbers. They typed lots of numbers on the padlock so much and so fast that none of them could remember one single number. Then the middle of the tree opened up and everyone saw an elevator approaching up.

Linda and her friends took her friends and the villains in the elevator down to two hundred feet below the surface. The doors opened and everyone was amazed with the prison corridor they entered in. It was white and shiny. It had only one grey door at the far end.

They watched the US marines lock up the very unhappily Texas Pete, Bulk and Skeleton. Linda further explained that their cell was escape proof. There wasn't even enough room for Skeleton's smallest bones to escape.

* * *

SuperTed, Spottyman and their Pontypandy friends were called back to the White House.

Linda's father, the President of the United States, declared this day Spottyman Day. Spottyman Day because according to Linda, he has done more for the whole planet today than anyone, including SuperTed which the teddy bear and everyone agreed. After all if he didn't bring SuperTed to life with his cosmic dust, Texas Pete could have ruled the world years ago and brought misery to everyone.

The spotted alien was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President himself. After thanking him and shaking hands with him, he turned to SuperTed. "I'm grateful for this, but how important is this medal?"

"Oh, Spotty, this is the highest American award any civilian can get," SuperTed told him. "And I hope today has just shown you how useful you are. If I didn't have you as my partner, I couldn't save both our Pontypandy friends and our station from hitting anywhere in the world."

That really made Spotty happy. So did getting applauded by the civilians all over the world knowing what he did.

But what made him the happiest the most was he got to spend some time with Linda. After spending the night at the White House after a wonderful celebration, everyone decided to head back. But Linda said she was taking a vacation on a small private cruise and wondered if Spotty would join her. She said she would take their friends with them and back to Pontypandy in a slow but relaxing way.

After Steele checked with the Chief Officer in Wales if that was all right and SuperTed checked how long it would take for the station to be fixed (where the repairers said it would take months, they said they would be delighted and with Texas Pete, Bulk and Skeleton in the American President's private and toughest prison cell, it was all arranged. The heroes did nothing on the cruise but relax, laugh and had lots of fun which they all deserved.


End file.
